Sick leave burden: 3 checks before pricing crew hours

Key takeaways

• Identify the employer and job location before counting workers.
• Keep the payroll records behind each count.
• Separate statutory coverage from employer-provided leave benefits.
• Record unresolved questions before signing off on the rate.

Why headcount comes first

If you load paid sick leave into crew hourly rates, you are assuming the leave cost belongs in every hour your crew bills. That cost may arise from statutory coverage, employer policy or other obligations. On a job in Oregon, Maryland or Illinois, the first question is not "how much sick leave do we pay?" It is "does this employer owe paid sick leave to these people at all?"

Oregon's headcount rule establishes a paid sick time threshold; Maryland's quoted rule identifies which employees count toward its threshold. In the third, the answer depends on who is excluded from coverage. Either way, the check has to happen before the leave line goes into a bid.

Estimators often inherit a burden rate from the last job. That rate may have been built for a larger shop in a different state, or for a crew that was never counted against a threshold. A burden that is wrong in either direction costs you. If it is too high, you lose bids you could have won. If it is too low, you absorb the cost on every hour your crew works.

The three checks below are not legal advice. They are the checks I would want finished before anyone signs off on the leave line. Each one links to the agency page that states the rule, so you can confirm the wording yourself before you rely on it.

Test one: Oregon's 20-week average

Oregon ties paid sick time to the size of the employer, and it measures that size over time rather than on a single day. The agency's wording is precise, so read it closely: "The number of employees is calculated based on the average number of employees employed by an employer during each of any 20 workweeks in the calendar or fiscal year immediately preceding the year in which an employee's sick time is to be taken." ( BOLI, sick time for workers)

The threshold itself is stated in the same source: "If an employer had 20 weeks (not necessarily consecutive) in which the daily average was 10 or more (six or more anywhere in the state for employers with operations in Portland), the employer's employees are entitled to paid sick time." ( BOLI, sick time for workers)

Four things in that language change how you run the test.

The count is for the employer, not the job. The rule looks at the average number of employees employed by the employer. A single crew on a single job may be far smaller than the company's total, so your count has to start with the employer's whole workforce, not the names on one job sheet.

The 20 weeks do not have to be back to back. A company that is busy in several separate stretches can reach the number even if it looks small in most months. Build a week-by-week list for the look-back year and count the qualifying weeks. Do not eyeball it from a summer peak.

The look-back is the prior year. That means the number you need is set by last year's workforce, not by who is on the job you are bidding today. If a company grew or shrank, the answer can change from one year to the next, so the test should be rerun each year rather than copied forward.

Portland operations use a lower number. If your company has any Portland operations, do not use the 10-employee number alone.

Illustrative example: counting qualifying weeks

Suppose an employer without Portland operations records a daily average of 10 employees in 20 separate weeks of the prior year. Those weeks meet the quoted Oregon threshold even though they are not consecutive. Save the weekly records with the bid's leave-cost calculation.

Seasonal crews raise the most questions here. BOLI's sick time page asks directly, "What if I have 11 employees, but only for a short period of time as seasonal workers?" That is the exact situation many estimators face in the field. Do not guess at the answer from a summary. Read the agency's response on the page and apply it to your own payroll records.

Test two: Maryland's 15-employee threshold

The Department of Labor's FAQ asks whether an employer includes full-time, part-time, temporary and seasonal employees when measuring against the 15-employee threshold. The answer on the same page is direct: "An employer is required to include all employees in determining whether the employer has met the 15 employee threshold, including full-time, part-time, temporary and seasonal employees." ( Maryland Department of Labor, paid leave FAQs)

That sentence establishes which employee types must be counted. The estimator's job is to make sure the count includes every type of worker the sentence names.

Do not count only the full-time crew. Many estimators start with the core payroll roster and stop there. A company with a dozen full-time people and a handful of seasonal hires can clear the threshold once the seasonal workers are included, even though the core roster looks too small.

Count the employer, not the job. As with Oregon, the threshold is measured for the employer. A Maryland job with a six-person crew may still be part of an employer that exceeds 15 when every employee is counted. Pull the company-wide roster before you decide the job is below the line.

Keep the count dated and written down. Headcount changes through the year, especially for seasonal and temporary work. Save the roster, the date it was pulled, and the basis for the count in the bid file. If someone asks why the leave line was included or left out, the answer should be on paper.

Resolve mixed arrangements with counsel. If your crew includes people whose employment status is unclear, such as workers supplied through an agreement with another company, do not settle that question on your own in the estimate. Put the question to the employer's labor counsel and carry a stated assumption in the bid until it is answered.

When the count is close to 15, treat it as a real risk, not a rounding error. A small change in seasonal hiring can flip the answer, so the estimate should show which way it was decided and why.

Review three: Illinois exclusions and the notice

Illinois needs a different kind of check. The Illinois Department of Labor's page on the Paid Leave for All Workers Act states plainly: "There are certain categories of workers that are not subject to the law." ( Illinois Department of Labor, Paid Leave for All Workers Act)

The sentence matters because it means you cannot assume every hourly worker on an Illinois job is covered. The question here is not "how many people do we have?" It is "which of these people fall into a category the law does not reach?" This is a coverage review, not an arithmetic one.

Do that review worker by worker. Look at each role on the crew, compare it with the categories the Department of Labor lists on its page, and write down the result. Exclusion from this act does not establish that a worker has no paid leave cost. Confirm benefit requirements, employer policies and other obligations separately. Keep the two lists separate so the crew rate is built from the right base.

A useful way to document the review is a short table with one row for each role. Give each row the role title, the number of people in it, whether the role matches a category on the Department of Labor page, and the name of the person who made that call. Crews change during a job, so date the table and update it when someone is added or moved to a different role. If a role sits on the line between covered and excluded, write that down and get a written answer before you bid it either way.

The same page also includes this line: "Paid Leave for All Workers Act Notice (Required for all employers)" ( Illinois Department of Labor, Paid Leave for All Workers Act). That means you should not wait for the coverage review to finish before planning for it. Put the notice on the list of administrative responsibilities and confirm how the employer must handle it.

Putting the checks into one burden line

Once you know which check applies to each job, document its result before calculating the leave line. Here is the sequence I would use.

• Sort each job by state and by employer. A company that works in more than one of these states needs a separate answer for each job location.
• Run the check that applies. For Oregon, build the 20-week count from the employer's workforce for the prior year. For Maryland, count every full-time, part-time, temporary and seasonal employee at the employer level. For Illinois, sort the crew into covered and excluded categories.
• Decide whether the leave line applies. Confirm the applicable benefit requirements before calculating sick leave costs. Check employer-provided benefits and other obligations before setting any leave line to zero, and record the basis in the bid file.
• Spread the cost over the right hours. Divide the expected leave cost over the hours the covered crew actually bills, not over every hour on the job. The loaded rate should reflect who receives the benefit.
• Show the inputs. A reviewer should be able to see whether the leave line came from a passed test, an excluded category, or a rate carried over from a prior bid. A number with no source behind it is the one that gets questioned later.
• Rerun the count every year. Oregon's look-back, Maryland's seasonal hiring and Illinois's crew changes all move over time. A count that was right last year may not be right now.

Many estimators will want a single standard burden percentage for all three states. That shortcut is tempting, but it hides exactly the differences this post is about. If you must keep a standard rate for quick bids, mark it as provisional and run the three checks before the bid goes out.

Keep this leave calculation alongside your employer payroll tax checks so the burden inputs can be reviewed together.

Mistakes that cost the most

A few errors show up again and again.

Counting one job instead of the employer. A job-level crew count can be far too small.

Using the wrong Oregon number. Using the 10-employee figure alone can give you the wrong answer.

Looking at this year's crew for Oregon. A quiet current season does not settle the question.

Treating Illinois as a headcount question. Keep the coverage decision separate from the employee total.

A short checklist before the bid goes out

• The state and employer are identified for each job.
• The Oregon count uses the employer's workforce for the prior year, counts any 20 weeks that qualify, and applies the six-employee figure to Portland operations.
• The Maryland count includes full-time, part-time, temporary and seasonal employees at the employer level.
• The Illinois crew is sorted into covered and excluded categories, with the reasons written down.
• The Illinois notice responsibility is assigned at the employer level.
• The leave line reflects applicable requirements and employer benefits, with its basis recorded.
• The source pages and applicable effective dates were checked for the estimated work.

Use the construction estimate audit to review this leave line with the rest of the bid inputs.

Where to confirm the rules

Use the agency pages linked above as the starting point, and read the full pages rather than relying on the excerpts in this post. Rules and FAQ answers can change, so confirm the requirements and effective dates applicable to the work you are estimating. For questions about how the rules apply to your own workforce, your accountant or employment counsel can answer what a blog post cannot. When you call them, bring the exact question and the numbers behind it: the employer's weekly headcounts for Oregon, the full roster for Maryland, and the role table for Illinois. A specific question with specific figures gets a far more useful answer than a general request for help with the leave line.

The goal is not to find the cheapest number. It is to make sure the number you bid has a clear reason behind it, so you can defend it to the client, to your own managers, and to the agency if the question ever comes up.

Today, pull the employer's payroll records for the job you are estimating and write down the leave-cost question that still needs an answer.

Questions before pricing leave

Does falling below a threshold make the leave cost zero?

No; employer-provided benefits and other applicable obligations may still create leave costs.

Does the Maryland count settle the leave rate?

No; confirm the applicable benefit requirements before calculating the rate.

Is the Illinois review a headcount test?

No; it checks whether workers fall into excluded categories under the Paid Leave for All Workers Act.